Letting go

As I was picking up the inner bits of my cafetière from where they were drying on the washing up draining thing this morning, a glass that one bit had been drying on got stuck and then rapidly unstuck again and broke.  This was one of my favourite glasses originally bought as a pair from a second hand bric-a-brac shop on Pembridge Road in Notting Hill.  I remember buying them and washing them because they were in a bargain bin left on the street outside and they were only a pound or 50p or something like that, but I knew they'd be gorgeous after being washed up.

The loss of this glass today was like an omen.  I'm probably going to have to let go of a lot of things that hold precious stories from my past and discard them to help with moving out.  I still don't know where I'm going to go, but if the worst comes to the worst and I end up having to move in with the cowboy, I know it will mean discarding even more than I otherwise would, which for me is like letting go of my identity.  Books and diaries, scrapbooks and magazines all form a kind of 'family-and-friends' community for me in the absence of geographically close ones of the human kind.  

How I will live with the idea of throwing books into the recycling bin is quite another story.  I used to give them to charity shops in the UK of course, but there aren't any second hand book shops here, except antique ones and those would be books in Czech, of which I have a more limited supply than English ones.

That glass was also a symbol of reward.  A nice little glass of wine in it was like a little acknowledgement that I had worked hard and survived and deserved a soldier's recognition for fighting through the loss and hardship.  Now both that glass, the champagne glass pictured in my profile pic and all the other nice glasses and mugs and things I had to leave behind in London are gone.  Along with my piano, several beautiful photography books and more.  Will I have to get rid of all my diaries and letters from ex-partner and photos from my life too?  Where will I draw the line?  How will I draw the line?

Someone (probably some great leader or guru or someone that I should really know) once said that all pain comes from attachment.  Maybe I have to learn that getting so attached to things is silly.  Or that cherishing things is the root of all evil.  Or something.  I always thought that being attached to things, especially things no-one else would like to steal, but that mean a lot to me, was a better strategy for life than attachment to people.  Because people can up and leave of their own free will and 'there ain't nothin' you can do about it'.  Maybe I got it all wrong.

That glass breaking was like the very beginning of my heart breaking.  It symbolised all that I've lost over the last few years and all that I have yet to be forced to relinquish.  So I burst into tears.  (I hadn't yet had my coffee of course, so that's my excuse.)  Because I'm not entirely sure that this is 'no more than you can handle' as people say about life when it gets tough.  You're not supposed to be sent 'more than you can handle' but I think I'm going to need a helluva lot of help to get through this because the last time I moved I had lots of help.  And then some.  And I bloody well needed it because I had to give up my piano, my country, my relationship and my work all at once.  Not to mention a good few friends too.

This time it feels like giving up the last thing I had going for me: my privacy.  My space in which to do all the things I need to do to keep me going: aerobics, writing without distractions, listening to music, peace and quiet when I need it, being able to sleep in my own bed, having a bath with a chair piled with books and magazines next to me, doing singing practice and even recording.  These are my strategies for survival when there's no money or when there's no-one out there who gives a damn or when hope seems to be beyond the reaches of the planet's atmosphere.  Are there any flats available on a planet in Andromeda by any chance?  I mean, San Francisco would be wonderful, but beggars can't be choosers...